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5.14 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 3 1
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Johnson hired a lawyer and threatened to sue
Yates for libel.
Te issue died without any other action from
either side, but it was not the frst time or the
last that Colonial Gardens became a headache
for Johnson. In 2008, four South End busi-
nessmen formed an investment group to buy
the building and raze it to make way for new
development. Johnson sided with neighbor-
hood organizations that opposed demolition
and successfully sought a landmark designation
to prevent that action. Area realtor Tommy Lee
Gailor, a brother of one of the investors, says the
landmarking limited the partners' options and
led them to walk away from the deal. He blames
Johnson for not being statesmanlike and bring-
ing the two sides together.
"Johnson had an opportunity with Colonial
Gardens and he let it slip through his fngertips,"
says Gailor. "Now it's just an eyesore."
Last year, fve years after the deal went
sour, the city purchased Colonial Gardens for
$430,000, asking for proposal submissions
from private developers to buy and revamp the
property, with fnancial sweeteners from metro
government thrown in. Recently, the only taker,
Underhill Associates, which is also redeveloping
the former Americana Apartments on Southland
Boulevard, accepted a deal in which the city will
turn ownership of the property over to Underhill
for $1 and provide the company with a $1.2
million construction grant. Te only holdup is
the need to persuade a Little Caesars Pizza now
located on the property to move, because the
goal is to attract locally owned restaurants and
shops rather than national chains to the site.
As you might expect, the 2008 developers are
burned that Underhill is getting a generous deal
when they couldn't fnd support for a project
that would have cost the city nothing. One of
Johnson's tasks was to ask the owners of Sister
Bean's Cofee House — now farther down New
Cut Road — to consider moving to Colonial
Gardens when construction is complete. It turns
out that one of the cofeehouse's owners, Teresa
Girodo Gailor, happens to be the wife of one of
the original investment group's partners, Rusty
Gailor, and she let Johnson know in no uncer-
tain terms on Facebook that his part in the 2008
landmarking of Colonial Gardens wouldn't help
attract her business.
For now, South End residents are waiting for
the situation with Little Caesars to be resolved so
they can move forward. Johnson, in the mean-
time, is going about business as usual. "My goals
for the next term are to fnally get an NBA team
here, which we are working on hard at this mo-
ment," he says. "To continue paving and doing
what we have been doing taking care of people's
problems as they arise. We had a gentleman who
called the other day because he couldn't get his
garbage picked up because it was in an orange
bag. We fought all the way to the mayor's ofce
trying to get that picked up yesterday."
24-31 Dept.indd 31 4/21/14 11:25 AM